In the Nest
By William Campbell
This is it.
The refrain echoes throughout Eagle Nation. You can hear it at Franklin Mills, and on South Street, and Down the Shore, and in The Dining Car.
This is the year.
Surely the stars have finally aligned just right, the thinking goes, and a Super Bowl championship is inevitable, indeed predestined, for legions of long-suffering Iggles fans.
Decades upon decades of frustration have built up, creating an irresistible force of expectation. This is it! This is "our" year.
The pressure mounts, the hopes surge, and the money flies out of Philadelphian wallets in lusty anticipation of what may be — no — of what will be.
Stop me if you’ve heard this tune before. Forgive me if you’re experiencing deja vu. Turn the page if, off in the distance, you can hear Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young singing, "We have all been here before, we have all been here before . . ."
But it’s different this year, the faithful insist. Now the Birds have one of the best wide receivers on the planet, in Terrell Owens. Now they have Jevon Kearse freaking out opposing quarterbacks. They’ve upgraded the linebacking corps, with a young and quick Dhani Jones and a repentant Jeremiah Trotter.
They return a healthy Brian Westbrook, and a still-cannabis-free Correll Buckhalter. Plus the offensive line has been restocked, and the cornerbacks, with another year of maturity, are about to blossom before our very eyes.
Heck, even the new third-string quarterback, Jeff Blake, is a former Pro Bowler with 132 touchdowns on his resume. Yes, they say, this is the year.
Well, maybe the clamoring chorus is right this time. Certainly the Birds have a lot of the pieces to the puzzle, perhaps more than ever. Consider their offense. How does a defense cover the mercurial Owens, and B-Dub, and Freddie Mitchell, and L.J. Smith, and Todd Pinkston?
Never before has an Eagles team looked so formidable on paper, and surely, less talented teams than this have won the Super Bowl. It’s really not too hard to imagine this squad parading down Broad Street in early February alongside millions of freshly satiated Eagles fans.
"At the start of the preseason, I guess everybody’s predicting us to be there," says center Hank "Honey Buns" Fraley.
But what if they don’t win it all this season? Will Owens, Trotter and Kearse all melt and disappear, a la the Wicked Witch of the West, immediately after the last loss?
Will Jeff Lurie then quickly move the team to L.A.?
Will the sun then cease rising over this City That Loves You Back?
No, of course not.
Eagles fans have every right to be really excited, but they’d be wise to not put a ton of pressure on every play of every game.
Don’t ruin it. Chill. Take it one game at a time.
Hope they stay healthy, hope they win the division, then when the playoffs roll around, take it from there. In the meantime, sit back and relax and enjoy this football team, without the added pressure of thinking "This is it" every Sunday afternoon.
Most guys on the team appreciate the fans, but the life-and-death attitude that fosters the endless negativity and criticism in this town causes some of the players to adopt a circle-the-wagons mindset.
"I want them to boo us," cornerback Sheldon Brown told me recently with an atty-tood. "Like when we were 0-2 (last year) and we had to get together and grind it out. We came out last year with a big head, people talking about, ‘This is it, this is it.’ But when your back is against the wall, that’s when you play your best football. So just tell (the fans) to continue to think negative, and good things will happen."
Fraley doesn’t seem to sweat the pressure either.
"The city of Philadelphia always puts pressure on all their sports teams," he says. "But I don’t think we get hurt at all by pressure. We just take it upon ourselves to stick together, when bad things happen they happen to us as a team. We just have to go out and do what we do best, and that’s play football."
Is this it? Or is it déjà vu all over again? ••
First preseason game: Friday, 8 p.m., at the New England Patriots, on Channel 3.
William Campbell can be reached at bccomm@juno.com